Baby Formula Shortage?

Really?

The first photo is from this morning at the Ursula Processing Center at the U.S. border. Shelves and pallets packed with baby formula.

The second is from a shelf right here at home. Formula is scarce.

This is what America last looks like. pic.twitter.com/OO0V99njoy

— Kat Cammack (@Kat_Cammack) May 11, 2022

The top and bottom shelf look like apple juice or applesauce (I could be wrong), but the middle shelf is baby formula.

The West's Political Class — Determined To Ignore The Will Of The People

Two snippets from Brexit, Trump’s wall, and the cynical inertia of the political class: In our democracies, politicians won’t do what people want:

...More people in the UK voted for Brexit — some 17 million — than have voted for anything at any time in the country’s history....

and

...Back by the Rio Grande, the people most affected are desperate for the wall to be built and for our immigration laws to be enforced. After pursuing other avenues and having been stymied, President Trump finally declared a national emergency to siphon funds from elsewhere to build the wall. The caterwauling over that would have been comical had it not been so obviously cynical. Between 2001 and 2013, various presidents have declared national emergencies 18 times and have diverted funds without Congressional appropriate to various projects. It’s different this time because it’s Trump....

Read the rest HERE.

So, what are WE THE PEOPLE supposed to be when we are regarded as peasants beyond the moat, peasants who, according to the oligarchy of all political parties, are incapable of understanding what we want for today and for our future?

I submit that we in the West are at a turning point: it's now or never for the future of our nations as representative governments.

Trouble! Our Courts System

I read THIS from the Daily Signal, and my heart sank (emphases mine):

How Liberal Judges Took Control of 70% of US Appeals Courts

On the campaign trail in 2008, Barack Obama promised to fundamentally transform the United States of America. After nearly eight years as president, he has delivered on one front by reshaping the federal judiciary.

That revolution has been comprehensive, dramatic, and under the radar.

When Obama entered the Oval Office, liberal judges controlled just one of the 13 circuits of the U.S. Court of Appeals. Fifty-five successful presidential nominations later, liberal majorities now control nine of those appeals benches, or 70 percent.

Outside of legal circles the transformation of the influential federal appeals courts has gone largely unnoticed, though.

“The Supreme Court grabs the spotlight, but it hears fewer than 100 cases a year,” Texas Supreme Court Justice Don Willett said, “while the 13 federal courts of appeals handle about 35,000.”

More than one-third of the 179 judges on federal appeals courts owe their seat to Obama, Willett told The Daily Signal. “That’s a legacy with a capital L.”

Obama also has left his mark on the U.S. District Courts, which are the lower federal courts, successfully appointing 268 judges—seven more than President George W. Bush.

Obama didn’t push federal courts to the left by himself, though, since the Senate must confirm a president’s judicial appointments. And some conservatives complain that Senate Republicans handed over the keys to the judiciary without a fight.

“These nominees can’t be characterized as anything but radical liberals, and the senators knew that when they were voting,” said Ken Cuccinelli, a former attorney general of Virginia who is now president of the Senate Conservatives Fund, a political action committee.

[...]

“When Americans vote in November, they’re choosing not just a president but thousands of presidential appointees, including hundreds of life-tenured judges.”

Read the whole thing HERE.

Article III judges are appointed for life. Article III judges include nine on the Supreme Court, 179 on the courts of appeals, nine on the Court of International Trade and 677 for the district courts.

Non-Article III judges include United States magistrate judges and judges of the United States bankruptcy courts, United States Tax Court, United States Court of Federal Claims, and United States territorial courts.

Damn to hell those who twice voted for Obama. His legacy is entrenched in ways we can only begin to imagine!

Our Economy Is On The Brink

Ron Russell opines:

Obama has been trying to pad the economic numbers to put his failed economic policies in the most favorable light. However, most of the public are just not buying it. All people have to do is ask themselves a simple question, "Are you better off now than when Barack took office?" The truth is there and not in the spin on the actually numbers the White House puts out!

The Economic Reality

From this article in the NY Post, dated April 30, 2016:

...Americans are angry because they don’t care about the statistical noise — they care about what they see with their own eyes.

True, there may have been 15 million new jobs created during the Obama administration — which, on the surface, is laudable. But that’s about half what was needed to both absorb newcomers to the workforce and those who were laid off over the past decade and would like to return.

[...]

One last statistic, from Sentier Research. Median annual household income in the US reached $57,263 this past March, which was 4.5% higher than in March 2015.

But — and here’s where the anger comes in — this March’s figure is still slightly below the $57,342 median annual income in January 2000.

January 2000!

Americans haven’t gotten a raise in more than 16 years.

Statistical noise doesn’t just confuse economists and politicians. It also drowns out the sound of people complaining.

Read the entire article HERE.

Sloppy Legislation = Tyranny

Please watch this short video before reading my commentary:


For a moment, let's think about all this in different terms. Because I'm most comfortable discussing this matter in educational terms, allow me to do so for just a moment.

First, note these two examples of dangling participial phrases:

Hiking the trail, the birds chirped loudly.

Wishing I could sing, the high notes seemed to taunt me.

Grammatically correct revisions of the two above examples:

Wishing I could sing, I feel taunted by the high notes.

Hiking the trail, Squiggly and Aardvark heard birds chirping loudly.

You can learn more about dangling participles at Grammar Girl.

Now let's look at an example from the classroom:

A student turns in a composition to me. I find all sorts of errors in logic, dangling participles, and the like. I point out to the student what he has actually said in the essay.

He replies: "That's not what I meant."

I respond: "But that's what you said."

Then we laugh because the errors actually conveyed absurd images: in the first example, the birds were hiking the trail; in the second example, the notes were singing the high notes.

From that point on, the student is more careful to write exactly what he means.  And he proofreads, too.

Words matter — or used to matter.  United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was spot on when he stated in his dissent to the SCOTUS ObamaCare decision of June 25, 2015: "Words [now] have no meaning..."

According to the Roberts Doctrine, which overthrows the United States Constitution, my students no longer have to revise.  They can be a sloppy as they like with their words. HOORAY!  [sarcasm]

Furthermore, the words in all contracts to which you have penned your name mean nothing. Sound farfetched to you? Think again! A few short years ago could you have imagined that America would be in the sorry state which she is in today? And so rapidly?

Congress, packed with lawyers who should know how to write legislation correctly, drafted sloppy legislation and, worse, did not read the final gargantuan piece of ObamaCare legislation.  Of course, President Obama, a Harvard Law School graduate, also didn't read the law. In my view, all of them committed political malpractice.

Political malpractice is tyranny!

If Only!

Great idea! And require a $50,000/year deductible per family member. Redistribute the wealth!

House bill would force the Supreme Court to enroll in ObamaCare

And every federal employee and politician, too. Give 'em a taste of their own medicine. NOW!

I don't count on the GOP to do any such thing, of course.

Stick a fork in our republic. She's done.

Additional reading: The Roberts Doctrine and ObamaCare (at my blog Always On Watch).

White House Above The Law (FOIA)

With a hat tip to Constitutional Insurgent of Libertas and Latte from USA Today (March 16, 2015):

White House office to delete its FOIA regulations

The White House is removing a federal regulation that subjects its Office of Administration to the Freedom of Information Act, making official a policy under Presidents Bush and Obama to reject requests for records to that office.

The White House said the cleanup of FOIA regulations is consistent with court rulings that hold that the office is not subject to the transparency law. The office handles, among other things, White House record-keeping duties like the archiving of e-mails.

But the timing of the move raised eyebrows among transparency advocates, coming on National Freedom of Information Day and during a national debate over the preservation of Obama administration records. It's also Sunshine Week, an effort by news organizations and watchdog groups to highlight issues of government transparency.

"The irony of this being Sunshine Week is not lost on me," said Anne Weismann of the liberal Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW.

"It is completely out of step with the president's supposed commitment to transparency," she said. "That is a critical office, especially if you want to know, for example, how the White House is dealing with e-mail."

Unlike other offices within the White House, which were always exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, the Office of Administration responded to FOIA requests for 30 years....

On we go, marching on the road to serfdom.

WE THE PEOPLE have lost the power we once had.

Orwellian times.

Cutting Retiree Benefits

The cuts involve the ailing Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, an independent agency of the federal government.  This portion of the Wikipedia article explains how the PBGC is funded.

Excerpt from the Washington Post article Congressional leaders hammer out deal to allow pension plans to cut retiree benefits:

A measure that would for the first time allow the benefits of current retirees to be severely cut is set to be attached to a massive spending bill, part of an effort to save some of the nation’s most distressed pension plans.

The rule would alter 40 years of federal law and could affect millions of workers, many of them part of a shrinking corps of middle-income employees in businesses such as trucking, construction and supermarkets....

Note the following example:

Whitlow Wyatt, 70, retired with a $3,300-a-month pension in 2000 after working more than 33 years as a long-haul driver. He could face pension reductions of 30 percent or more if Congress permits trustees of the hard-pressed pension fund to slash benefits.

Read the entire article HERE.

Just imagine what havoc these cuts would work upon the personal budgets of many already-retired, elderly retirees under the age of seventy-five!  Retirees who are over age seventy-five or disabled are exempt from the cuts.

The root of the financial troubles of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation is an inverted pyramid of support for the pension plans.  There used to be four active workers or members for each retiree, but now the ratio is one active worker or member for every five retirees.

Meanwhile: Boehner gives $16,928 for each of the 56,000 youths, young adults and children who crossed the border during the 12 months up to October 2014.

Housing UAC's

UAC's is the government term for Unaccommpanied Alien Children.

Where to house them?

From Fox News:

Feds to house, feed illegal aliens in Border Patrol Academy

The federal government has found a place in New Mexico to help house the tide of humanity pouring in from Mexico: The Border Patrol Academy, the very facility where agents are supposed to be trained to keep illegal immigrants out of the U.S.

The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Artesia, a sprawlinThe Obama administration has tasked Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson with finding temporary housing for illegal immigrants waiting to be processed for deportation in what is known as Expedited Removal proceedings.g campus in the arid dirt plains of western New Mexico known for oil and dairy farms, could soon house hundreds of children and families that have crossed the southwest border. Tens of thousands of immigrants have crossed in through Mexico primarily from Central America, where they appear to have been led to believe that once in the U.S., they will be allowed to stay. The government is scrambling to accommodate them, but some critics say putting them up in the academy turns government policy on its head.

[...]

The Obama administration has tasked Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson with finding temporary housing for illegal immigrants waiting to be processed for deportation in what is known as Expedited Removal proceedings....

Meanwhile in San Antonio: Swine Flu Confirmed at Shelter for Unaccompanied Minors.

School starts in about two months: [Boston area] Chelsea Schools Overwhelmed By Sudden Influx Of Immigrant Students. Go to the link to read the article and to watch the video.

Home owners, get ready for your real-estate taxes to soar. Those who lease residents will also see their monthly rent soar.

The ObamaCare Assets Grab

From Fox News (hat tip to Diary of a Right Wing Pussycat):

ObamaCare death debt? States can seize assets to recoup Medicaid costs

Tom Gialanella, 56, was shocked to find out he qualified for Medicaid under ObamaCare. The Bothell, Wash., resident had been able to retire early years ago, owns his home outright in a pricey Seattle suburb and is living off his investments.

He wanted no part of the government's so-called free health care. "It's supposed to be a safety net program. It's not supposed to be for someone who has assets who can pay the bill," he said.

And after reading the fine print, Gialanella had another reason to flee Medicaid -- the potential death debt.

Though many may not realize it, states are allowed to recover the cost of health care after someone's death by seizing their assets. It applies to Medicaid recipients who are between the ages of 55 and 64. The law has been in place since 1993, when Congress realized states were going broke over rising Medicaid expenses.

But under ObamaCare, Medicaid eligibility has expanded dramatically along with the promise that the federal government will pick up the cost of the higher tab -- at least for the first few years, after which states will be on the hook for a portion of the increase.

Millions more are entering the system, perhaps without knowing that their assets could be at risk.

[...]

Critics see a money grab.

"I think that people are maybe in for a shock when they find out their heirs are going to be paying for their care, because they got into a system under false pretenses," said Dr. Jane Orient of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a group opposed to the Affordable Care Act.

The estate recovery law is so under the radar right now that interest groups like the AARP are still studying how it will play out under ObamaCare for seniors....

Read the rest HERE.